Three To Watch: Australian dangermen

Robert Harvey

The midfielder for St Kilda, the club that represents the bayside suburbs of Melbourne, has won the Brownlow medal for the best and fairest player in the Australian Football League for the past two seasons. This season he polled in 14 of the 22 matches and, while Wayne Carey, the Australian captain, had started favourite after blitzing defences with North Melbourne, no Australian football fan would deny that Harvey deserved his honour.

He is 5 ft 11 ins of perpetual motion, running relentlessly for 12 miles a game. He attacks every contest and if he is within "cooee" of the ball, chances are that he will get his hands on it. Even in the match against Dublin club Bally boden on Thursday night it was noticeable that the tempo lifted when Harvey was near the action.

He has a distinctive choppy stride which enables him to accelerate out of trouble with a few sharp steps. And as well as fast, he is slippery. It is rare for him to be caught with the ball.

It takes immense sacrifice from the opposition to curb his influence but the task was completed to a degree in the 1997 grand final by Adelaide. The Crows were stifling St Kilda and Harvey found less space to get rid of the ball. But he battled on, kept getting the ball and in the end was the best player in the beaten side.

It was a manful effort and an indication of the champion that he is.

Harvey lists the chance to represent his country among his greatest honours in what is a bejewelled career. Ireland can expect to get sick of the sight of him.

Jeff Farmer (No 20)

The Melbourne forward has leapt and swivelled on to the mantle of the most exciting player in the AFL. He was recruited from Tambellup in the wheat belt of Western Australia, where he made his senior debut as a 14-year-old forward while his father directed traffic on the back line, but his career had been erratic until this season.

Melbourne, with a population of 3.5 million, is a big city for a boy from a dusty outpost 3,000 miles away and Farmer suffered from home sickness. This year he settled down, and crowds around Australia thrilled at the skills of the 21-year-old known as The Wizard.

He kicked the goal of the year and took what many considered to be the mark of the year after launching himself into the sky. To take such a big mark was a huge effort for a player who is 5 ft 10 ins, but Farmer is the type to turn convention on its head. He is also one of the band of Aboriginal players increasingly making their mark on the game. Aborigines traditionally felt ostracised at AFL clubs, where their skills were appreciated but they were little understood as men. In recent years Aborigines have gained strength in unity after Essendon midfielder Michael Long took a stand after being racially abused. The result is that it is now a punishable offence to racially abuse players - and stars such as Jeff Farmer can draw comment solely for their performance.

Often it is a performance worth savouring.

Wayne Campbell

The International Rules will suit the Richmond midfielder as much as anyone on the field. Australian selector Gerard Healy, who played in the 1984 and '86 series, describes International Rules as "hardest-running game in the world" and Campbell has the capacity to thrive on this challenge. He motors up and down the field, distributing the ball with deft handballs and kicks, and his ability to get the ball quickly to boot is renowned. He wins as many possessions as any player in the AFL and the Irish would do well to try to limit his impact.

He says the chance to represent Australia fills him with pride. "We had to forego the footy trip, which is every player's highlight (of the season), I reckon, so that shows how much the players want to come here. You just don't get the chance to represent your country every day."

The International Rules series also gives Campbell a chance to keep his mind from the controversy that has arisen over his career at home. He has quit Richmond, the Melbourne inner-city club for which he has won two best player awards, but the club has refused to trade him when he has a year of his contract to go.

There are bigger stars in the Australian squad, such as Wayne Carey, but a dynamic athlete and canny ball-winner such as Campbell is likely to decide the game as much as anyone.